Winchester Boys and a Little Serendipity
by LaedieDuske
Summary: **COMPLETE** The Winchesters first encounter my OC, just don't let her hear you call her "little". T for mild language, violence.
1. Chapter 1

Dusk, a cool breeze played through my hair as I knelt in the meadow. There was a sharp rock trying to separate my right kneecap from my body. I was pretty sure the two large males standing like bookends, looming over my kneeling frame, were not overly concerned with my comfort when they threw me to the ground fifteen minutes before.

The rock was sharp and absurdly painful, but I did not dare even shift my weight. The council was conferring and I did not want to draw their attention back to me any sooner than necessary.

They were supposed to be debating my guilt or innocence. The only debate so far had been over how to execute me. I had been declared guilty before we even got to the meadow where my tribe usually gathered for important events.

Like trials.

That night it was just the council and my two guards. I was silently thankful the entire tribe did not have to suffer through this miserable excuse for a trial.

My body ached but the pain was nothing compared to the agony in my soul. How could this be happening to me?

The Mejore was suddenly standing in front of me. The eldest of the council, the one to pass down the verdicts, our Shaman, our Chief.

He was in half-man form, deadly black claws sprouted from his fingers and toes. His legs were long, powerful, canine legs. His head was huge and the wolf muzzle was grey with age.

He towered over me when in human form, he positively dwarfed us all in half-man.

The muscular males had my arms, pulling me up straighter and driving the rock through to the joint, by the feel of it.

The pain managed to distract me momentarily and I thought I heard the rumble of a vehicle in the distance. I swung my head toward the road and thought I saw headlights, but it was still not full dark and was hard to be sure.

A massive, clawed hand gripped my jaw hard enough that I swore I heard the bone creak and spun my face back to stare into the amber wolf-eyes of the Mejore. He continued to squeeze painfully hard as he spoke in the clipped sounds of our people's tongue.

I felt their presence up by the road, however, and was again distracted from his words though I could not turn my face. I held his eyes while I reached down within myself and opened my gift. My empathy.

I reached out with it. Out beyond the group of shape-changers waiting to put me down. I ignored their eagerness, their excitement over the blood that was about to be shed. Pack law is brutal and unquestioned. There would be no tears shed for me.

I reached out in an ever-expanding circle until I really felt the strangers.

_Humans!_

The shock of it nearly threw my concentration, but I did not want to betray them to their deaths if they were just passers-by, out of their car for a stretch and a pee break. The thought almost made me laugh. Brutal pack law + my bleeding f***ing heart = me currently kneeling on my tribe's version of Death Row.

Yep, that's worked out well for me so far.

I reached out to each of them, their emotions sliding over me like a soft cloth over my skin. Both were tingling with adrenaline but devoid of fear, they were moving closer. I felt a thrill of compassion and something that felt almost like protectiveness from each in their turn and it dawned on me - they were going to try to rescue me.

I swallowed a groan when I realized from the road I must look like a damsel in distress.

I was sure this could get worse, I just wasn't sure how.


	2. Chapter 2

The humans had split off, attempting to flank their target. I had no way of knowing whether they had seen the rest of the council. I had to believe they hadn't, after all who would be crazy enough to charge into the middle of a situation where they were so sorely outnumbered just to play hero? I mean, I knew they could see the Mejore - how could they _miss_ him - and they must be able to see the enforcers beside me, but I did not sense fear from either of them. I was thinking how odd that was when I was snapped back to my own dire straits.

The Mejore tightened his taloned fingers around my throat, cutting off my air. "You two go take care of the intruders" he clipped out of his lipless muzzle, his eyes locked onto mine. The two who had stood guard over me were gone so quickly my hair ruffled in the breeze.

Shit.

I really had been hoping everyone here was too distracted by my sorry ass to notice them. I could not see the rest of the council, but I felt them ghost into the woods. Black spots and white starbursts painted the Fourth of July at the edges of my vision.

Then all hell broke loose.

Three things happened almost simultaneously. A gunshot to my right followed closely by the anguished cry of a dying animal told me one of the enforcers had shape-shifted, and a large man with spiky hair went sailing over my head in the near-dark sky.

Over the sound of my heart pounding in my hears I heard the meaty thunk of his body connecting with the boulder behind me to the left, all of the air leaving his lungs in an agonized cry as his head cracked off the unforgiving object. He slammed to the ground and was frighteningly still.

I heard another gunshot, then nothing from the other one.

The Mejore released my throat and I gasped a lungful of air as he lunged for the man behind me. Except there was no way in hell I was letting him hurt this man who had tried to help me.

With his long stride he was fast - with the adrenaline surge from my near-death experience I was a fraction of a second faster. I managed to throw myself horizontal, sliding along the fallen man's body and covering it with my own just as the Mejore lashed out for a killing blow. I wrapped my arms behind me, holding myself to his limp form.

I felt the claws tear through my stomach and my vision greyed out. I fought the instinct to curl in against the pain, which would leave the unconscious man underneath me defenseless.

Gasping for air, my vision cleared barely enough to see the Mejore's face just inches from mine.

"Never return to these lands," he growled in my face over the ringing in my ears, as if he expected me to survive the damage he had just dealt.

"No Father," I whispered, and before I could blink he reached out and slashed my face open. He spun and headed for the trees, a blur in the night. Shaking, I watched the only parent I had ever known abandon me to death. I knew I did not stand a chance in hell of making it.

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**A/N I know it's a short one, but I wanted to hurry up and get the guys going. I am actually shooting for a chapter a day if I can, until the whole story is up. The way my life goes, though, I'm not holding my breath. You probably hadn't ought to either. I know CPR, but unless you're next door...**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N I know I know, lot of dialogue in this chapter. Gotta get the "how do you do"s, "pleasure to meet you"s and "allow me to staunch your blood flow"s out of the way. Preferably before she bleeds to death. There may be rewrites at some point, not 100% satisfied that I "hear" the guys properly but the update is overdue.**

I blinked and felt my eyes go huge as a man very nearly as massive as the Mejore dropped to his knees in front of me. I instinctively tightened my grip on the unconscious man behind me and prepared to defend him again before I realized it was the other man from the car. He held my eyes for a moment, looked to the man underneath me and then to my wounds. He flinched like it hurt him to see them and I wondered if he was an empath as well.

I felt the other man stir slightly against my back and then groan. The man in front of me put his huge hands carefully on my shoulders when he saw the urge to roll off his friend flit through my eyes.

"Dean?"

A slightly muffled and groggy, " 'mgood Sammy."

"Dean, don't move."

He moved slightly, jostling me, and I clenched my eyes shut. "I said I'm -"

"Dean don't _move_." Sammy barked. Dean froze, I wasn't sure he was even breathing. "Sorry. I'm not entirely convinced you're as okay as you say, but I know for sure _she's_ not."

"Son of a...okay, help me roll her."

I opened my eyes and he met my stare, waiting for me to prepare myself. I nodded a fraction of an inch and breathed, " 'kay."

"You're awake?" A breath on my earlobe and I suppressed a shiver. Dean spoke quietly into my ear, "You're gonna be okay, we're gonna move you carefully and you'll be okay, alright?" His voice was soft, gentle, but the deep bass of it rumbled through his chest and vibrated into my back.

I found myself strangely comforted in the face of such compassion and tenderness for a total stranger coming from both of them. Especially after my own family had just tried to kill me. The stark contrast made me dizzy.

A moment later and four massive hands covered almost the entirety of my torso, stabilizing me for the roll. Dean muttered comforting words to me and I was grateful for that. Focusing on his voice took my attention away from what was about to happen, and his voice was certainly distracting. It was like boulders rolling downhill through crushed gravel and so deep I could feel it reverberating in my body.

I realized my mind was wandering. I dragged myself back to the present just in time for them to roll me. I could not stop the groan that tore its way across my lips as Dean slid carefully out from under me. They hadn't moved me far, but it felt like they had dropped a burning rag onto my stomach.

I started to drag my knees up, to curl into a ball, but that just pulled on everything and my vision started to waver around the edges. I blinked and squeezed my eyes closed for a second as they lowered me onto my back again, breathing through the worst of it.

When I opened my eyes Sammy was looking at me again, waiting for my return from the Land of Too Much Pain - my least favourite vacation destination. Dean was looking at my wounds as he pulled his flannel shirt off then pressed it hard onto the gashes. I bit my lip until the wave of agony passed, suppressing the scream that would just make everything worse.

"Sorry, you okay?" Dean looked to me with remorse and concern splashed through his green eyes as he pressed painfully on my stomach. I did not trust my voice just yet so I nodded and tried to muster a smile to soothe his conscience.

"Sammy and Dean huh?" When I finally found it I hated how weak my voice sounded, but I was very uncomfortable with the intense observation from both of them. I caught the look Dean flicked to the other man, and the smirk on his face. "What?"

"Careful, he grows fangs and claws when someone calls him Sammy."

I looked to the larger man and arched an eyebrow. Was he a shapechanger? He didn't smell like one to me. "Sorry. Sam? Samuel?"

"Thanks a lot Dean. I think she actually believes you," he smirked as he said it, but I could see the gears turning. Questions forming. "Sam is fine, but - "

"How's your head?" I redirected attention to Dean, not wanting to answer questions just yet. I was starting to feel drowsy from blood loss, though, and was afraid to stop talking.

"I'm fine." I could feel pain radiating off him, but it wasn't as if I could _tell_ him that.

_Oh by the way I happen to be an empath and I can tell you're hurt._ Yeah, that rarely goes over well. I remembered the sound of him bouncing off the hard surface and winced, but he seemed to have gotten off lucky. If he had been seriously hurt I would have found a way around it, but he wasn't so I let it go.

"What's your name?" I did not remember closing my eyes, but found I had to open them to look at Sam when he spoke to me.

I snorted. "You think you hate Sammy, wait'll you hear my name." I started to laugh but my stomach objected to the movement with searing pain. I held my breath until it passed, but by then I was not sure if I would have the energy to answer anyway.

"Dammit," Dean breathed, "we've gotta get her to a hospital."

Panic overrode everything else, "No, no, no hospital. Please. I can take care of it, if you have a needle and thread in your car somewhere." Ignoring the pain and both of them trying to restrain me, I tried to get up. There was no way they were taking me to a hospital.

"You really think you're going to stitch all that up yourself? Just hold still." Dean had put an arm behind my shoulders and used my own movements to pull me partly onto his lap while Sam was talking to me, "No hospital, okay, no hospital just please stop moving. Alright?"

I closed my eyes and breathed through the pain for a minute, it felt like that was all I had done all night. I could feel my body trembling with the exertion and pain. Anger at my own helplessness kept me going. "I have stitched myself together more times than I can count, I think I can manage this time." I did not have nearly that much confidence in myself at that point, but he didn't know that.

"You in the habit of stitching yourself together?" A smirk and a cocked eyebrow from Dean, who still held me draped across his lap. He considered me for a long moment. "Are you a Hunter?"

Hunters?

Hunters.

_Hunters!_

Of course they were. If my day hadn't been going completely to hell I might have thought of that on my own. I suppose that was my day to die after all. I sighed and met Dean's eyes.

"No. I'm not a Hunter. But I've been hunted by more than a few." Their eyes registered surprise, met across my body and flicked back to me. I braced myself for the beginning of the end for the second time that day, "I'm a therianthrope, and if you guys are going to kill me for being born into the wrong family I would appreciate it if you would just hurry up and do it. Bleeding out isn't how I would have chosen to go." I felt my eyes starting to close and struggled to stay awake. "And my name is Serendipity."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Thanks go out to my anonymous reviewers! I wish I could send you each a private message, but no such luck. isabel - I wish I could write a chapter as quickly as you can read one, thanks for the love! Don't be mad, know that I am doing my best to return the love with something worthy of your attention. lolzinthestarz - No need to beg sweetie! I'm happy to keep offering up what I can as soon as I turn it into something readable. I would sure hate to post something half-finished just to post something, I can only hope it's worth the wait! Sarah m - Thank you so much for your awesome review, I am so glad you are enjoying it, and hearing I had you hooked from the start is a HUGE compliment. It's what I hope for with every piece. So thank you! Sara - Updated! Hope you enjoy it! And now, back to our program:**

I did not remember closing my eyes, but the next thing I knew Dean was trying to carefully lift me and Sam was (from the look on his face through my cracked eyelids) trying not to flatten him.

"...just hit your head Dean, you were _unconscious_. You should probably -"

"Sam, I'm fine. We need to get her stitched up before she really _does_ bleed out though. Those freakishly long legs of yours need to be put to good use, run ahead and grab the first aid kit and lay out a blanket to put her on."

Wait, were these two actually arguing over who was going to _carry_ me? I growled. "I can walk, don't sweat it guys." I opened my eyes and started to roll out of Dean's grip.

I had not realized he had started to stand up. Some days I think the universe hates me.

Lucky for me, even with a knot on his head, he's fast as hell and even stronger than he looks. He stepped forward with one foot, dropped to the other knee and snugged my body back to his chest before I could fall. Pain cascaded from my stomach up into my jaw and all the way down to my toes. I wanted to scream, but all that came out was one long, high pitched keening sound. I think I forgot to inhale again at the end of it because I felt myself slipping back into the darkness. I could hear Dean talking low and soothing in my ear but I could not make out what he was saying.

This time I did not fight the darkness. I embraced it, bought it dinner, kissed it goodnight.

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Several things happened simultaneously when next I found myself in the waking world. My eyes snapped open, not just because I always wake alert, but also because there were swarms of wasps stinging my face and abdomen over and over. I took a swing to disperse the more painful swarm over my stomach and came in contact with something considerably larger, fleshier and yet somehow still bonier than any swarm of wasps could ever hope to be.

Shit.

I blinked against the light in my eyes, realizing it was the overhead light in a car. Dean was at my head, frozen in mid-stitch as he worked on the gashes in my cheek while Sam had been working on the massive wounds left on my belly. I say had been because somehow getting clocked in the eye by a semi-frantic almost-human tends to disrupt what you are doing.

"Oh shit. _ Shitshitshit _I am so sorry Sam." I could not believe I had just done that. These poor guys were getting the crap beat out of them trying to help my sorry ass and half their damage had come from me. I sighed and felt my body begin to tighten against the pain.

"It's okay, don't worry about it. I've had worse." He smiled and tried for a light tone, but I could tell I had startled him badly and his eye was already starting to bruise. "I was just telling Dean about therianthropes, too. You are born that way, right? Not created like some other shapeshifters?"

These two were up to their wrists in my blood, trying to stitch me back together, and they were not even positive I was not carrying some bloodborne contaminant they could catch? Damn.

"Yeah, we're born like this, and I can only take the form of animals so nobody will ever see me shuffling around looking like Great Aunt Beatrice." I offered up a smile for Sam, but what I really felt like doing was breaking down into tears. These guys weren't just unlike any Hunters I'd ever encountered, they were two of the most selfless people I had ever met.

Somehow that made hitting him even worse.

"Dammit." I carefully reached up and laid the backs of my fingers across the top of his cheekbone and felt the heat there. He was going to have a hell of a bruise sooner than later. "I'm really, really sorry."

He reached up and took my hand, gave it a little squeeze and the placed it back beside my on the seat of the car. "Seriously, don't worry about it. We were trying to get as much done as we could before you woke. We were hoping we could spare you some pain."

"Don't worry about it," it was my turn to say, "I have had worse and done the patching myself."

"Yeah, we've seen some of the scars while we were cleaning you up. Pretty impressive, you and Dean should compare notes." He smirked at the other man, who made an irritated noise in the back of his throat and pretended the slices on my face were the most fascinating things he had ever seen.

"Somehow I don't think I'll be up for that tonight, but thanks for offering up your friend as my 'kids, don't try this at home' counterpart." I managed a smile for him, "I appreciate you trying to spare me, but the sooner you guys are finished, the sooner I can stop bleeding all over the back seat of your car and you can get on with your lives."

My eyes were half closed again, but I did not miss the look that passed between them before they both set back to work. Something had happened while I was out of it and the alarm bells that started going off in my brain roused me back to fully conscious again.

"What's going on guys?" Sam was radiating a mild nervousness, while Dean never wavered from the confidence he had been blanketed with since the first time I sensed him. Neither were in panic mode, though, and that served to quiet the klaxons in my brain. Somewhat, anyway.

I tried not to flinch away when the needle bit into the deeper section of my stomach wound. The steady two-beat stab of the needle was still far preferable to having it ripped out of a still-bleeding wound. I breathed shallowly into my chest as Dean finished with my face and moved to share the torn canvas of my midsection. Stitching deep wounds in stereo. Why the hell did I keep fighting to stay awake? Oh right. Stubborn ass.

"Guys...?" I didn't mean for it to come out as close to a snarl as it did, but I could feel myself slipping away from the world again and there was nothing I could do about it. I wanted an answer before that happened.

"Well...uh...we were thinking - " Sam started, as if he were trying to find the right wording.

"Look, you're hurt, you've lost a lot of blood, I would be willing to bet his claws weren't the cleanest things you've ever seen which means you need to be watched for infection. You have at least one fugly here who'd just as soon finish your evisceration as look at you by the sounds of things, and there's just no way in hell we're going to dump you on the side of the road somewhere with a 'hey, sorry you almost died but we have better things to do.' We just don't work that way." Dean cut him off in a voice that somehow managed to simultaneously brook no argument and still not sound like a direct order. Simple logic, right?

I stared at him for a moment as my eyes started to lose focus again, noting the stubborn set of his jaw. He was not going to be talked out of it. I knew that look.

I saw it in the mirror often enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N This chapter ought to wrap us up for the prequel. Thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, faved and begged for more! I have one more Ren story flitting through my head and then she will likely take a vacation. Don't want to wear out her welcome, you know! lolzinthestarz - the image you planted of skipping and singing without apology or explanation brought a smile to my face. Keep singing! Sara, Isabel, I appreciate your unswerving devotion! Unfortunately, as much as I would dearly love to update every story daily, there just aren't enough hours in a day and not nearly enough of me to go around. And Isabel - no, I am not dying (well, no more than we all are as we creep closer day by day the the end of our lives), but I actually am injured. It keeps me from being able to sit at the computer every day, but I promise I'm doing the best I can. Thanks to everyone for the encouragement. :-)**

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The weight of a thousand suns were pressing down on my eyelids, stabbing ribbons of light and pain ricocheting off the insides of my skull.

And someone was touching me.

My eyes flicked open and I tried to move but it was too bright to focus on anything and hands grabbed my shoulders in an iron grip. Slamming my eyes closed again, I tried to curl in on myself against the nausea that poured over me.

"Shit!" the owner of the hands yipped, pressing my shoulders harder into the soft surface behind them and a solid weight slid across my hips. "Easy, take it easy! You're safe, Ren, remember? Come on, open your eyes for me."

I could feel the frown slide into place, making my head hurt worse. I focused on releasing the tension in my body as I tried to get my bearings. I recognized the voice, but everything was so fuzzy I could not place it.

"Ren?" I whispered, confused. I managed to crack my eyes open a few millimeters. Sam had my shoulders pinned still. His arms were stretched almost straight allowing him to rest his body across my hips, pinning me flat on my back without putting pressure on my injuries. The position felt familiar somehow. I realized it was daylight and wondered how much time had passed.

Sam looked a little sheepish as he carefully removed his weight from my body. "Sorry, you've been in and out for a couple of days now with a pretty high fever. We sort of shortened your name...to save time..." he didn't seem to be sure what to say and I wondered what my fever dreams had been. Then again, I was pretty sure I didn't want to know.

"...when talking me in from the ledge?" I croaked as my eyes drifted closed, my throat was dry and sore. His hands left my shoulders and the bed shifted and then shifted back. I cracked my eyelids again as he pressed a straw to my lips and I sipped carefully. "Lukewarm, my fave." I offered him a grateful smile and he chuckled as he put the glass back on the bedside stand.

I realized I had not heard any other stirrings in the room. I couldn't suppress a flinch when my mind replayed the sound of Dean's body bouncing off the boulder and then the ground. I knew he'd been up and functioning, but I had no idea how much of that had been adrenaline. "How's Dean?"

The door to the room was flung open as if Dean had heard his name, and he came into the room in a whirl of energy kicking the door closed behind him.

"Oh, he's fine." Sam said rather drily.

"Hey, look who decided to join us," Dean said with a smile, dumping plastic grocery bags and books all over the kitchenette table. "Sammy here force-feeds me soup when he thinks I'm sick, and I figured he'd do the same to...I mean _for_...you." He smirked at the glare the taller man shot his way. "I stopped at the little diner in town and brought back some beefy vegetable thing. I couldn't save you from the soup, so I at least tried to rescue you from the dreaded chicken noodle."

I had to smile. These two were friggin' nuts. Then something Sam had said clicked home and I slid my eyes back to him. "Wait a minute. Two days?"

"Yeah," Dean answered, "we settled in here and Sam started researching as much as he could about your physiology and what we could do to safely bring your temp down."

"Physiology? Wow, Dean, you been reading the word-a-day calendars again?" Sam's face was comically shocked.

"Oh ha ha, you're a real riot you know that?"

"Alright you two," I growled, "don't make me knock your heads together." For the barest of moments, they both looked at me uncertain of whether I was serious. I grinned and shook my head at them, "How long have you two been married?"

Dean muttered _"Too long,"_ as Sam laughed and answered _"We're brothers."_ and suddenly it was all clear to me.

"Ah," I grinned, but it didn't last. My earlier concern wasn't so easily shoved aside, "Where are we?" They exchanged a look. "Alright, no more non-verbal communication - that only works for me if you have pheromones I can pick up on. You don't have the right ones for the task, so spill please."

They both managed to look a little sheepish, but it was Dean who answered, "Well, Sammy actually wanted to find a place to hole up pretty quickly to let everyone recuperate some but I thought it'd be a good idea to get some miles behind us before settling in." Apparently the only one who had needed "recuperating" was me and I was grateful to him for not pointing that out. I gave him a look that said as much and he gave a small nod before continuing, "We ended up just getting a couple hundred miles rolled out before we ended up needing to stop. Which is probably just as well since we didn't even ask which direction you wanted to head in."

"Yeah, I was a little preoccupied with bleeding and passing out to give directions I'm afraid." I smirked. "Besides, as long as there are miles between us and them so they don't come after you two, that's all I really wanted to know."

"Won't they come after you?" Sam looked puzzled.

"No. What are the books for?" I could tell he wanted to ask, I could also tell he wouldn't. I was too well acquainted with Hunters and their unflappable patience to think he'd do anything besides wait for me to be ready to talk about it.

"Sam thinks he found us a hunt, we're looking into alternatives for getting rid of water spirits."

"I know a cleansing ritual to be done at the four compass points on the shoreline that should do it." They both looked at me, shock plain on their faces. "My father was the Shaman - I picked up a thing or two." It was all I could do to not laugh at the twin stunned expressions. I started to smile and it unexpectedly morphed into a jaw-cracking yawn.

"That would be great, Ren," Dean started walking towards the bed and I could hear the 'but' before he said it, "but you've just spent two days drowning in fever dreams and you've been rubbing your stomach since I came through the door."

My hand stilled suddenly, I had not even realized I had been doing it. Dean took the water glass away and replaced it with a Gatorade bottle (complete with straw) while Sam straightened the covers. I had no idea how to react to any of it, so I closed my eyes and mumbled my thanks before drifting off almost immediately.

When I woke up I would teach them the ritual. In the meantime, it was nice to be somewhere safe for a change. I knew I could rest with the brothers watching over me.

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**A/N 2 That's it, thanks again for reading!**


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